5 Strangest Top Secret Weapons From WWII

the urge to survive can drive mankind to his noblest heights and his darkest depths and so with the fate of entire nations at stake it's no surprise that times of war have resulted in incredible innovations that have simultaneously benefitted the entire world while at the same time dooming Millions with the great pals of the world engaged in a fight to the death the Second World War led to the creation of an array of new inventions and technological advancements as each side poured vast amounts of resources into developing cutting-edge weaponry that might enable them to vanquish their enemies while most of these futuristic research projects led to fully functioning weapons many were both impractical and downright bizarre these unusual top-secret wonder weapons demonstrating how in desperate times any idea will be considered no matter how strange in the quest for victory here are my choices for five of the most unusual top-secret weapons from world war ii number 5 the sun gun a weapon capable of instantly burning cities into ash boiling away oceans and immolating entire armies is one that conquerors throughout history could have only dreamt of possessing as controlling such a force would grant his owner unlimited power as anyone who might challenge his authority could be easily and swiftly dealt with in a manner that would terrify and discourage any other would-be rivals yet despite sounding like little more than the unrealistic fantasy of a diabolical genius plans for such a weapon were actually made by German scientists in the closing years of the Second World War a serious consideration was given to the idea of launching what was essentially a giant manned mirror into space and using it to harness and concentrate the sun's rays into a deadly and destructive beam that could hit enemy targets anywhere on earth in doing so not only changing the outcome of the war but ensuring undisputed German domination of the planet fighting against the combined might of the Soviet Union the United States and the British Empire is no surprise that as the war began to turn against the axe powers German leaders became increasingly focused on developing a super weapon that could win the war outright as all but the most fanatical realized that it was now impossible to defeat the Allies via conventional means yet although many of these projects Howard great promise they proved to be too little too late and when Germany finally surrendered in May 1945 the scientists who had been working on these advanced super weapons fell into the hands of the victorious Allies along with all of their combined research and knowledge US Army technical experts eagerly began the job of sifting through the captured plans and schematics and interrogating the scientists discovering an array of futuristic innovations including everything from advanced aircraft designs to missile technology and even nuclear weaponry information that would help the u.s. develop the world's first atomic bomb and decades later even land a man on the moon yet it was the discovery of a top-secret project for a weapon known as the Sun gun that sent a chill down the spine of the US scientists for had this orbital weapon of mass destruction been successfully completed any nation that opposed Germany would have been reduced to ashes the idea of using the Sun as a weapon was nothing new with the legendary ancient Greek inventor Archimedes rumored to have developed a Sun power heat ray over 2,000 years earlier using a system of connected giant mirrors to reflect and magnify the sun's rays into a super hot beam that set fire to the sails of Roman ships at the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC in the late 16th century a similar weapon was proposed by Scottish mathematician John Napier and in 1929 the German physicist Hermann Oberth resurrected the idea with a modern twist proposing the construction of a Space Station fitted with a 100 metre wide concave mirror but could reflect and concentrate sunlight onto any point on earth in doing so producing massive amounts of free energy from the heat yet although Oberth intended for the space station to be used for peaceful purposes its seneschal for military use gained the keen attention of the German military with the second world war raging a group of German scientists working for the army began tweaking oberth's proposal for a far more sinister purpose what became known as the Sun gun would be part of a space station in orbit thousands of miles above the earth using a giant three and a half square mile metallic sodium mirror to focus the sun's rays onto enemy targets on the Earth's surface below magnifying the sun's energy into a super weapon with enough power to burn entire cities to ash and even boil parts of the ocean operators would live and work on the station using pumpkin patches to produce oxygen while vital supplies from Earth would be delivered to the crew using Rockets magnetic shoes would compensate for the lack of gravity onboard the station which could be maneuvered using thruster rockets so that any location could be targeted when the military needed the weapon deployed against its enemies encoded orders would be dispatched via radio to the crew on board who would then move the gun into position before opening fire the giant mirror would converge the sun's energy onto the target below much like a child might use a magnifying glass to burn an ant creating a powerful beam of heat that would incinerate cities immolates entire armies and boil away naval fleets any nation lacking the capabilities to launch rockets into space would find themselves incapable of defending against the destructive power of the Sun gun the fear-inspiring weapon ensuring German domination of the planet as anyone who dared resist was reduced - yet despite such history altering potential the project never made it further than the drawing board it was estimated that building the weapon could take decades and cost billions of dollars however perhaps the greatest problems were technical such a weapon would have been incredibly fragile to enemy fire and space debris while no heavy rockets capable of lifting the equipment into orbit existed and even if they did the weapon would have been unable to generate a beam with enough energy to cause any damage on earth at the height of the orbit planned the Sun gun was simply too far away causing the majority of the energy harnessed from the Sun to dissipate while traveling across the vast distance from the mirror to the target number for the panjandrum the Second World War is famous for its variety of top-secret experimental projects that utilized revolutionary new technologies however not all of the weapons created during the conflict were so futuristic in appearance and design with what became known as the panjandrum essentially being little more than a giant rocket propelled cart packed with explosives this unusual looking contraption intended to clear the d-day beaches of its deadly German defenses but instead proving just as dangerous to friendly forces as the enemy anticipating an Allied invasion of Europe Germany had constructed a series of imposing coastal defences known as the atlantic wall huge bastions connected by reinforced concrete walls ten feet high and seven feet thick barred the way forward for Allied troops with any soldiers tasked with breaking through the defense's unlikely to get very far instead obliterated under a storm of machine-gun and artillery fire from the pillboxes and fortresses strategically positioned along the walls length for the d-day landings to have any hope of succeeding these formidable defenses would need to be neutralized and breached opening the way up for men vehicles and supplies to push forward into France yet overcoming the Atlantic wall would be no small task it was calculated that a massive 1,000 kilograms of explosives would be needed to create a single tank sized breach in the concrete wall however getting this amount of explosives near enough to be effective proved to be a major hurdle with the beaches of France covered in razor-sharp barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles and with all approaches to their defences turned into killing grounds by the machine-gun nests mortars and artillery that protected them any attempt to deploy the massive payload of explosives needed to break through the wall would result in certain death it was clear that an unmanned device capable of being launched from a landing craft and independently moving across the beach would be the safest and most reliable way of deploying the explosive payload needed to breach the defenses however unfortunately for Allied planners no such device existed in their military arsenal to solve this problem in stepped the British Admiralty s Directorate of miscellaneous weapons development a section of the Admiralty responsible for the development of various unconventional weapons throughout the war work quickly began on the creation of what became known as the great panjandrum an unmanned prototype that could carry explosives from a landing craft across the beach and to the Atlantic wall where it would detonate and clear a path for the troops following behind the strange-looking device was made up of two huge wooden wheels ten feet in diameter and fitted with steel treads the wheels joined together by a central drum which howls to the explosive payload while the entire contraption was propelled forward by a set of rockets attached to each wheel the theory behind this strange-looking mismatch of low-tech components powered by modern rocketry was on paper both simple and feasible when deployed with its full load of several thousand pounds worth of explosives the Rockets would be fired as the vehicle exited the landing craft propelling the massive wheels forward and enabling the entire vehicle to reach speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour enabling it to crash through any obstacle in its way as it hurtled towards the target upon reaching the atlantic wall the panjandrum would smash into the concrete defenses causing its explosive payload to detonate with a false great enough to carve out a breach in the wall large enough for Ally tanks the pass through enabling a secure beachhead to be established and paving the way for a successful invasion of Europe despite high hopes for the experimental weapon initial tests were a complete failure with the device proving highly unstable on each test several of the Rockets failed causing the proportion to become unbalanced resulting in the weapon erratically veering off course before it got anywhere nearest target and despite performing several modifications to the design the engineers were unable to get the contraption to travel in a straight line never mind to cross an obstacle late and Beach with any semblance of stability in fact the weapon proved to be more of a menace to anti troops than it ever might be to the enemy frequently spinning direction and hurtling back down the beach towards the landing crafts full of friendly soldiers the main stumbling block was that the weapon was completely unguided and as such the failure of just a single rocket or the presence of any uneven surface would cause the entire vehicle to violently veer off course making it completely unsuitable and even downright dangerous for use in a live combat and as such the entire project was scrapped in fact the whole project was such a colossal failure that some have speculated that it might have been an elaborate hoax and part of Operation fortitude the Allied ruse to convince Germany that the inevitable invasion of Europe would be carried out around the heavily fortified area of Calais rather than the relatively lightly defended Normandy coastline number three the krumlov firing bullets around corners without having to expose yourself to danger might sound like every soldier's impossible dream however with the German army fighting a vicious but losing battle amidst the rubble and ruins of European towns and cities axis engineers set to work on finding a way to enable their troops to fire at the enemy without leaving the safety of cover the incredible and bizarre looking curved barrel attachment they eventually designed allowing soldiers to fire a deadly storm of bullets around corners mowing down their unsuspecting enemies without needing to leave the protection of their concealed positions this strange but potentially history changing weapon perfectly encapsulating the German leadership's wasteful obsession without landish and expensive high-tech weaponry that they were convinced would turn the tide of war in their favor but only served to hasten their inevitable demise as desperately needed resources were diverted and squandered on impractical top-secret weapons projects by 1943 the war was rapidly turning against the Axis powers with the string of incredible victories one during the conflicts opening years beginning to feel like a distant memory for the beleaguered German soldiers who were tasked with holding back an array of powerful enemies on multiple fronts defeats at Stalingrad against the Russians and in North Africa against the British had forced German forces to retreat in the face of the resurgent Allies who could now taste total victory after so many years on the verge of utter defeat yet retreat would be no easy feat as German forces found themselves fighting for their lives in the ruins of cities they had previously conquered bogged down in vicious urban warfare we're leaving cover for even just a split second would likely result in a storm of enemy fire coming your way tank crews were no less vulnerable as despite usually being encased within the thick armor of the hulking vehicles using the whole melted machine gun to mow down enemy infantry swarming around the sides required crewmen to open the hatch and leave the relative safety of the tank rendering them dangerously exposed to enemy fire in the process it was clear that the development of a weapon which allow troops to fire on the enemy from behind cover would be incredibly advantageous greatly reducing German casualties and even potentially turning the tide of war in favor of the Axis powers the idea of such a weapon was nothing new with the carnage and deadly stalemate unleashed in the trenches of World War one leading to the development of the periscope rifle an elaborate contraption consisting of a rifle rigged with the periscope allowing the soldier to fire at enemies across no-man's land from within the relative safety of the trench the shooter would lift the rifle over the trench and then look through the attached periscope below using a string to fire at his target without exposing himself to danger literally meaning curved barrel in English the crumpled elf was the next stage in the evolution of the World War one periscope rifle consisting of a curved barrel attachment for the stg44 assault rifle which when fired essentially curved bullets around corners while allowing the weapons wilfer to remain safely behind cover an optical sight utilizing a series of mirrors allowed the soldier to see around corners and aim at otherwise unseen targets while the barrel itself allowed bullets to effectively be fired around corners coming in a variety of curves including everything from a slight 30 degrees designed for use by infantry all the way up to a much more severe 90 degrees for use within tanks and armored vehicles the unusual-looking weapon actually worked as intended allowing for bullets to be fired at the enemy from behind walls corners or any other cover or concealment providing an enormous advantage to the soldier lucky enough to be equipped with it while tank crews could mow down pesky enemy infantry without needing to leave the safety of their vehicles saving enormous numbers of armored vehicles that would have otherwise been destroyed by infantry armed with mines or other anti-tank weapons yet the cromwell possessed two fatal flaws firing bullets through a curved barrel places enormous stress on both the barrel and the bullets this pressure caused Buddhists to shatter into tiny fragments as they traveled through the curved barrel producing an unintended shotgun effect that made the weapon only effective at very short ranges while the barrel attachment itself proved to have a very short lifespan becoming distorted and useless after just 300 rounds had been fired making it impractical for use in drawn-out battles where a soldier's life was on the line in fact the development of the chrome laughs was part of a wider German obsession with creating a whole host of impractical secret super weapons that the high command were convinced would turn the tide of war in their favor but were in fact too little too late and may have actually done more harm than good for the German war f diverting critical resources away from where they were needed most and instead funneling them into projects that were expensive and often years away from being ready with many being technological or dead-ends yet despite being a failure at the time the idea of firing bullets around corners has proved to be a resilient one with both the Soviets and Americans attempting to develop their own versions after the war ended with the most modern incarnation of the concept being the corner shot a weapon created for the Israeli Defense Force for use by SWAT teams and Special Forces which enables the operator to see and fire upon targets without exposing themselves to enemy counter-attacks number two the great Gustav since artillery was first deployed on the battlefield armies have consistently sought to outdo each other by creating ever larger cannons in the hopes of obliterating their enemies from a safe distance yet the monstrosity created by Germany known as the great Gustav took things to a new extreme becoming by far the largest gun ever assembled and was so massive that it could only be moved around on fixed railways the behemoth weighing 1,350 tons and wildung at 106 foot long barrel that was capable of firing giant 11-foot shells weighing seven tons each over an incredible range of up to 29 miles yet although such a weapon would have no doubt struck fear into anyone whom it was about to fire upon the sheer size of the gun would prove to be as undoing ending the war without having any real impact other than to showcase the incredible abilities of German wartime engineers almost as soon as he rose to power Hitler began making plans for the invasion of France seeing the old rival in the West as the major obstacle to his European ambitions however the French had not been idle and anticipating the threats that an emergent Germany might pose the French army had constructed a formidable series of fortifications known as the Maginot Line along the border with Germany stretching over 900 miles long this impenetrable wall consisted of tank barriers artillery and machine gun nests concrete block house and countless bunkers making it one of the strongest fortifications ever constructed breaking through these defenses with a conventional or sort would be a bloody affair for the attacking side and so before the Second Great War between Germany and France could commence a new super cannon capable of destroying the thick fortifications of the Maginot Line would need to be constructed the building of abnormally large artillery pieces was nothing new as far back as 1586 the russians created the tsar cannon which weighed in at 39 tons with countless other nations and empires soon following suit and the germans already had experience constructing a hufa sized artillery pieces deploying the weapon known as Big Bertha in the first world war however these weapons tended to be impractical for wide scale use due to their sheer size and weight which made getting them to the front lines a slow and cumbersome process by 1934 the German army High Command commissioned the Krupp company to design and build the gun powerful enough to destroy the main forts of the French Maginot Line creating such a weapon would be no small feat and the final prototype would need to be capable of pulverizing 7 metre thick reinforced concrete walls as well as up to 1 meter thick layers of pure steel while at the same time being able to fire from beyond the range of French artillery to accomplish such a mammoth task group went on to produce the largest artillery cannon ever built his final prototype weighing in at a mammoth 1,350 tons sporting a 30 metre long barrel capable of firing 7 ton 11 foot shells across a distance of nearly 30 miles the monstrosity required 250 men to assemble and a further 500 just to fire a single shell which he could only do 14 times per day because of the huge amount of time it took to reload the gun was so massive that it had to be broken down into five pieces and transported along railway lines from where it would also be fired as no land-based platform existed that was large enough to accommodate its immense weight a Land Cruiser that could carry the gun was considered however engineers soon realized that constructing what would have been the largest armored vehicle in the world was simply too impractical early testing of the great Gustav proved that it was more than capable of penetrating seven meters of concrete and 1 meter of steel was required however the weapon would never be used for its intended purpose technical difficulties with the project resulted in the weapon being delayed until 1941 causing the great Gustav to miss out on the long planned invasion of France however the delay had little effect on the outcome of the campaign rather than smashing through the Maginot Line static defenses with brute force the German army chose to simply bypass the imposing fortifications by attacking through Belgium in the north using their revolutionary blitzkrieg strategy to force the French into surrendering in just six weeks yet such an impressive feat of Engineering could not just be allowed to lay idle and the great Gustav was finally deployed on the Eastern Front with impressive results launching his massive shells onto the unfortunate citizens of Sevastopol in July 1942 with devastating consequences and in several other engagements showcasing its immense power by easily reducing thick fortifications to rubble and in one attack even destroying an ammunition magazine located 30 meters under the sea and protected by ten metres of concrete despite such an impressive show of force the great Gustav's sheer size and weight made it far too difficult to use and although a second version of the gun christened the Dora was also built both super guns would meet an untimely end as with the war rapidly drawing to a close German personnel destroyed the prized weapons to prevent them falling into the hands of the approaching Soviets number one project Habakkuk it's often been said that desperate times call for desperate measures and having suffered a string of defeats that left her empire isolated and on the verge of capitulation by 1942 British leaders found themselves in a situation where any idea no matter how bizarre was now being actively considered yet although converting a giant iceberg into an unsinkable aircraft carrier twice the size of the Titanic might sound nothing short of ridiculous there was actually sound logic behind the idea and after being reinforced by a highly durable under material known as pykrete and prevented from melting by an internal cooling system these huge floating fortresses could have potentially swung the Battle of the Atlantic in Britain's favor enabling her aircraft to cover the entire Atlantic Ocean bus keeping the German u-boat menace in check 1942 had seen the Allies suffer massive losses of crucial supplies and merchant shipping to German u-boats who were prowling the Atlantic Ocean with near impunity intercepting and sinking desperately needed supplies headed towards the besieged British mainland at an alarming and unsustainable rate although aircraft were effective at hunting down and destroying the u-boats the Atlantic Ocean was simply far too large for Allied air forces to patrol since their planes were mainly operating from land-based airfields and as such had a very limited flight range before needing to return home to refuel aircraft carriers were an effective solution to this problem since they provided aircraft a place to land and refuel at sea however they were also enormous ly expensive to construct and required the use of vast amounts of resources and raw materials that were already in dangerously short supply it was against this dire backdrop that a British inventor named Geoffrey Pike entered the fray proposing an ingenious but ridiculous sounding idea he suggested that it might be possible to construct a giant aircraft carriers out of ice after all ice is hard readily available and can be repaired easily by simply freezing more ice over any battle damage the carrier might incur Pyke theorized that it could be possible to tow one of the many icebergs floating in the ocean to a land-based shipyard where it could be leveled to provide a runway and hollowed out to shelter aircraft effectively turning it into an aircraft carrier made out of ice the final product would be durable buoyant and easy to produce in large numbers without needing to utilize lots of resources like steel that were in critical short supply yet the project soon encountered some early obstacles although hard ice splits and melts relatively easily and tends to deform under pressure while icebergs themselves are notoriously prone to rolling over such major issues would have surely resulted in the project being rapidly shelved however in a coincidental stroke of luck two scientists in New York discovered that freezing water and wood pulp into a single mixture created a substance that was both incredibly strong and resistant to melting while still remaining buoyant named pykrete in honor of jeffrey pyke this wonder material was 14 times stronger than ordinary ice making it harder than concrete and as such was extremely resistant to damage while retaining the ability to be machined and cast into shapes much in the same way as metal yet although pykrete melted more slowly than regular ice it still did melt causing the entire ship to eventually sag and become unstable unless it was called to -16 degrees centigrade to overcome this pitfall the entire ship would need to be covered in insulation and fitted with a refrigeration system that could pump cool air throughout the structure yet installing equipment like this would be incredibly expensive with the modifications complete the final design Court for construction of a 2004 Messel with a 40 foot thick hull capable of carrying 150 aircraft across a range of 7,000 miles yet this massively modified design came with a far heftier price tag than originally conceived the construction of a small scale prototype confirmed the designers worst fears and it was estimated that a full-scale version would be even more costly to construct than a conventional aircraft carrier in addition to the eye-watering costs the project was also becoming redundant thanks to rapidly changing circumstances the recent introduction of long-range fuel tanks allowed Allied aircraft to patrol further while growing Allied naval strength had ground down the German u-boat fleet in a drawn-out - war of attrition resulting in the Battle of the Atlantic finally starting to turn in the Allies favor and so with the bizarre ice carriers no longer feasible or even needed research into the project came to a swift end by 1944 so those are my choices for five of the strangest weapons from world war ii i hope you enjoyed the video if you did please consider giving it a thumbs up as it really helps with getting it to be seen by more people or so let me know which other weapons could have made the list in the comments below and I'll see you again soon

Channel: Unknown5

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Rating: 4.7188497 out of 5

Keywords: history, documentary, documentaries, unknown5, top 5, top 5s, list videos, top 10, education, Panjandrum, Krummlauf, Great Gustav, Iceberg Aircraft Carrier, aircraft carrier, entertainment, Top Secret Weapons

Id: 7pxW_2BtGJ0

Length: 28min 38sec (1718 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 15 2018